Evolution of the bandanna

Deanna, my second-in-command (on the organization chart, but in reality…), was sitting across from me with her weekly list of dragons she wanted me to slay. I heard a commotion in the hallway, which is not unusual.

Someone was running down the hall yelling, “My jump stick. I’ve lost my jump stick! Has anyone seen my jump stick?” A breathless young woman burst into my office. “Have you seen my jump stick?” Our expressions must’ve spoke for themselves because she dashed away to resume her quest.

I raised an eyebrow at Deanna. “One of ours.” We’ve worked together long enough to know I was inquiring if this woman was staff or client. In mental health, the line can blur. “She’s an intern.” Everyone under 30 looks the same to me.

About a half hour later, Colleen (the intern) stuck he head in my office and flicked a talisman strung around her neck. “I found it!” I looked at her blankly. “My jump stick. It’s my whole life.” Obviously, this didn’t help me any, so she came in to explain.

Before I get to that, I’ll lay out a time line. Very early in life, I was imprinted with cartoon or comic images of tramps and runaways carrying all their worldly possessions in a bandanna at the end of a stick. It always bothered me a little that I never actually saw a real person do that.

Going off to college, I had everything I owned crammed into a laundry bag that sat between my knees on the train. Quite a contrast to my own children. I had to tow a rented trailer with my stuffed SUV to check them into their dorms.

Somewhere during my college years or shortly thereafter, the politically correct hobo emerged. That is, young people living out of backpacks and off generous hosts. This morphed into adolescents hefting on a full pack just to go to the mall. You never know when an expedition might break out.

When I packed off to college, I thought that I did indeed carry my whole life in my laundry bag. But, I was a piker by Colleen’s standards, as she would show me.

The home for her jump stick was on a lanyard around her neck. Unless she bathed or plugged it into a computer, it was pressed to her chest.

Colleen plugged it into my computer to demonstrate. It had all her personal records, calendar, every assignment she had done in college, phone/email directory, passwords, account numbers, maps, references, correspondence, budget – everything. Or, everything that is Colleen. She told me she wouldn’t know how to leave her apartment and survive without it. That’s her in there.

The jump stick is a long way from the bandanna on a stick.